A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul.

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed or outlawed or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth.

A real leader is somebody who can help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

If you must take care that your opinions do not differ in the least from those of the person with whom you are talking, you might just as well be alone.

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham.

The U.S. presidency is a Tudor monarchy plus telephones.

Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.

People revere the Constitution yet know so little about it—and that goes for some of my fellow senators.